DELHI COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, DELHI: Jewel In Delhi’s Crown

Delhi College of Engineering was setup in 1940, originally as Delhi
Polytechnic, functioning out of the building that was in 1639 the library of
Dara Shikoh. DCE is presently under the control of Government of National
Capital Territory of Delhi (Delhi Administration) since 1963 and is affiliated
to the University of Delhi since 1952.

In the past 63 years, DCE has produced over 23,000 graduates and
post-graduates in engineering and technology.

While students are admitted on the basis of an entrance exam conducted by the
Faculty of Technology, University of Delhi, DCE still needs the students to have
scored a minimum of 60% in PCM at the 10+2 level. "We feel that the PCM
score is still very proxy to judge the technical skills of a students,"
says Prof PB Sharma, Principal, DCE.

Professional Orientation

Prof Sharma believes that in order to produce world-class engineers, they
must be provided with three types of inputs. While the first is definitely
academic, the second is input about application. "We therefore believe in
supplementing classroom input with expert views," adds Prof Sharma. The
third and the most important is professional orientation. An input that readies
the students to becomes practitioners of engineering science.

And it is to ensure this that DCE houses the local chapters of six
professional bodies that include Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), American Society of
Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), American
Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and
Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM). All students and teachers are members
of these professional bodies and are therefore, exposed to the leading edge of
technology in their respective fields of study. "These bodies links the
students to the industry and therefore make them better prepared
professionally," adds Prof Sharma. In order to ensure this industry
orientation, DCE students go out for live projects after the sixth and the
seventh semesters of study for a period of two months each.

Nurturing Entrepreneurs

The vision for the college as articulated by its Principal is to nurture
entrepreneurial talent. The idea is create a breed of engineers who believe in
the diktat of solution oriented design engineering. Says Prof Sharma,
"While we blame technology for a number of evils, we forget that most of
them can be solved by technology alone." And this is the driving idea
behind what students and faculty are doing together.

DCE believes that it has to work like an enterprise to succeed in this new
economy and for that it needs to cultivate, disseminate knowledge and also turn
the same into commercial products or services. "That’s how we will march
into the developed world," adds Prof. Sharma.

Incubating Ideas

The college has set up a formal entrepreneurship development cell to
identify and take good ideas and projects forward. The role of the college is
also now to manage innovation and incubate technology. And why not, computer
science graduates from DCE are a bunch of bright boys and girls. They demand an
average salary of Rs 3.5 lakh that went as high as Rs 8.25 lakh. Infosys emerged
as a star recruiter here picking up as many as 57 candidates.